BOOK JACKETS – Lauren Kessler – s2842939

I chose to make 3 hardcover book jackets, as they would be made from good quality materials so they remain tactile and don’t fall apart. Their common theme is the brown paper as it works effectively with various methods of tactile typography, and looks like paper, rather than just plain white.

History of Type:

Decoration – I tried to keep decoration to a minimum, only focusing on the type itself. The blue lines underneath the text symbolise lines in a notepad and make the stamps look authentic due to the opacity of the letters/blue lines showing through.

Colour Palette – My colour palette consists of darker colours to represent the idea of ancient typographers not having access to many colours other than black or maybe red. I stayed away from any bright colours for this theme, including the brown paper, which I thought carried a nice theme throughout the series.

Custom Typography – My methods of creating this book jacket was through using hand-made stamps from foam and cardboard. I cut the letters out and stuck them on with glue and used various colours of paint to experiment with text layouts.

21st Century Typography:

Decoration – I used no decoration outside of the text in this book jacket. Again, the main focus is the type and I wanted to accentuate this feature by making it stand out.

Colour Palette – On this book cover I used many colours to represent ideas of the 21st Century. I used high-resolution images to embody a modernised feel.

Custom Typography - I used present-day techniques to create this type, such as downloading a font and altering it in Illustrator and InDesign as much as possible, by extending the letters and overlapping them etc, then adding a bevel and emboss effect to make the letters pop.

A how-to guide on Typography:

Decoration – The decoration on this cover was kept to an extreme minimum using nothing but paper to create the font, I used a bevel and emboss effect to make the text box pop and appear to be layered.

Colour Palette - I chose to use no colours on this book cover to focus directly on the composition of type and a clear suggestion on HOW-TO. Brown paper is the only colour, besides the white writing.

Custom Typography - I used the paper to hand-cut letters, and placed the sheet on top of another with a few centimetres gap to create a shadow. I drew the letters onto the paper with pencil, then cut them with a knife and flipped the template over so the pencil marks weren’t visible. I then reversed the image in Photoshop so it was readable.